Why is Bruce Friedrich willing to go up against debate teams at the brainiest schools in our nation over and over again? Because his argument (that eating meat doesn't make sense if given even a few minutes of thought) is watertight.

Read all about it at The Huffington Post, and get plenty of tips from Bruce in The Animal Activist's Handbook.

Muzzling a Movement, written by lawyer Dara Lovitz, finds its place in today's activist challenges and conversations, and is reviewed by Political Media Review.

What are the opportunities and challenges of being an activist?

First of all, there is the question of balancing activism with the rest of your life. Activists often feel that they have to give everything to their cause, at the expense of everything else. This can lead to burnout, imbalance, and a sense of futility. Hillary Rettig's book The Lifelong Activist is a wonderful companion for anyone who is, is contemplating becoming, or knows, an activist. It teaches you very practical steps and measures to take to make sure that activism is a joy not a burden and that every achievement leads you on to another.

So, how do you do what you need to do to change things. Josephine Bellaccomo's Move the Message is the perfect book to help you plan and execute your activism in as efficient, empowering, and effective a way as possible. From the very outset of planning and targeting your campaign, to using volunteers well and shaping your message, from talking to power brokers to taking it to the street, Move the Message not only helps you run a successful campaign, but provides invaluable insights into how you can be effective in all aspects of your professional life.

Finally, how do you sustain yourself psychologically in the face of violence and trauma. In Aftershock, long-time activist pattrice jones illustrates the importance of recognizing post-traumatic stress disorder and preventing yourself from being overwhelmed and isolated. She talks about the importance of honoring your body, supporting your friends, and trusting in your feelings, and also provides very hard-headed and practical advice on getting through the toughest of tough situations.

Watch for a glimpse of Lantern's Terrorists or Freedom Fighters in the trailer for the new feature film, Bold Native.

The film, about animal/environmental rights and the A.E.T.A., premieres a week from Friday in Los Angeles. No New York dates yet, but if you plan on attending AR 2010 you can catch the film there.

Check out the online magazine The Scavenger to read an excerpt from Sistah Vegan about veganisim's connection to anti-racist social justice work.

Dara Lovitz, author of Muzzling a Movement talks about the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and its effect on freedom of speech, activism, and animal advocacy, at NYU Law School, March 23, 2010.

Following this weekend's huge May Day rallies against the new immigration enforcement bill in Arizona, this morning's commute showed that in New York, this Monday morning, plenty of people are exercising their First Amendment rights.

Grand Central Station had a heavy presence by the War Resister's League, calling for nuclear disarmament of the United States. The demonstration included about forty people marching around the main hall with signs, and another team of people distributing information by every train track and exit. The call for disarmament is timed to coincide with the United Nations’ Special Session on Disarmament meetings. In addition to the demonstration, close to 2,000 were arrested at U.N. blockades, and another million marched to bring the message to the streets of NYC.

The other night I went to a meeting of the local group of progressive Christians. We heard a lecture on the subject of what we can know about the historical Jesus and what this means for progressive Christianity. The thesis put forward was that progressive Christianity supports inclusivity. Jesus believed in inclusivity — he hung out with tax-gatherers, prostitutes, and other disreputable characters. This is all very good, and very much to the point, because the presence of gays in the church (and the ministry) is very controversial in some circles.

But it doesn't go nearly far enough. What would Jesus say about the spectacle of the richest country in the world wantonly destroying the environment and polluting the atmosphere, conducting aggressive wars which kill hundreds of thousands of people, and rescuing the rich during a financial crisis the end of which we cannot foresee? And what would Jesus think about a society that allows all this to pass without apology, remorse, or accountability, or a church that thinks that this is too controversial a topic to speak about openly?

It is one thing to want to act; it is another thing to take action; and it is an another thing still to act consciously to bring about lasting change.

Sometimes the most effective activism takes place during ordinary encounters with family, friends, and even strangers—each interaction a chance to educate by example, embodying our ethical beliefs as best we can. In Living Among Meat Eaters, Carol Adams helps us become more aware of the message we're sending, with self-tests, strategies, meditations on vegetarianism, and tips for dining out and entertaining at home when meat eaters are on the invite list.

In Consciousness in Action: The Power of Beauty, Love, and Courage in a Violent Time, Andrew Beath has gathered the wisdom of several leading spiritual activists (John Mack, Julia Butterfly Hill, and others) to show how right mind and right livelihood can bring about enormous change. The activists talk about aligning their spiritual values with their wish to bring about social and political change.

Will Tuttle in The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony offers a powerful and polemical call for us to recognize that our choices not only impact the lives of others but also make us healthy or sick. We can no longer separate our lives off from the lives of the beings who live with us on this planet, and, conversely, working for the good of others is working for the good of ourselves.

While promoting the excellent DVD Food, Inc. on Oprah on January 24, Michael Pollan made the following statement: "The Inuit in Greenland you were referring to [have a] 75% fat diet — no type II diabetes, no heart disease."

The implication that the Inuit's high-meat diet is healthful is almost certainly wrong. The Inuit have a reduced life expectancy, and indigenous people on a similar diet in Alaska suffer from rampant osteoporosis. Moreover, the "Inuit" diet — huge amounts of animal products — seems to contradict Pollan's principle of "mostly plants." The most recent incarnation of the high-meat diet, the Atkins diet, is now universally discredited.

Is this just an isolated slip in an otherwise creditable presentation? Alas, I'm not sure.

As if there aren't already enough difficult problems in the world, suddenly climate change activists are themselves divided over the right way to deal with climate change. The hot issue now is "cap and trade."

Oh wonderful, you're probably saying to yourself. How much do we need to know about climate change — do we need to worry about all this? Yes.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the house of Lance Wright and his wife, built with the German "Passive House" standards as the ideal. It’s called a "passive house" because it relies on retaining natural heat in winter through "superinsulation," rather than "actively" generating heat with an oil or gas furnace.

Buildings get astoundingly little attention from scientists and the public, given the fact that they are responsible for almost half of all carbon dioxide emissions in this country. If we’re going to cut our carbon emissions by 80% to deal with global warming (let alone oil and gas depletion), we have to achieve deep energy reductions in building energy use. Just insulating the attic and turning down the thermostat isn’t going to cut it.

We desperately need radical changes to meet the challenge of resource shortages and global warming; but there's no political will to do so. Until this happens, two potential economic futures are likely: a slow decline, or a dramatic, quick crash. These alternatives were covered marvelously in a brief talk by Gail Tverberg, mild-mannered actuary by day but also an editor at TheOilDrum.com.

"Slow slide" looks like the default choice. As oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract, energy becomes more expensive, people stop buying, and we go into a recession (as happened in 2008). The downturn causes oil prices to fall, but as soon as the recovery starts, oil consumption rises and the price of oil spikes again: wash, rinse, repeat.

Will renewables like wind and solar power help get us to a renewable energy economy? At the recent ASPO-USA conference, Jeff Vail, a regular at TheOilDrum.com and a former Air Force intelligence officer, presented a thought-provoking paper on "the renewables gap" which threw this whole idea into question. Vail’s point was not that wind power wasn’t a good idea, or that it wasn’t technically feasible, but that it wasn’t politically feasible, because of the need for up-front investment.

The estimated EROEI ("energy return on energy invested") for wind turbines varies widely, all the way from 4:1 (pessimistic) to 24:1 (optimistic) — comparable to other forms of energy generation with fossil fuels. But unlike generating electricity from coal or natural gas, for wind almost all of the energy investment is up front, namely, in the manufacture and set-up of the wind turbine. This up-front investment will have to be huge and will take a big chunk out of the rest of the economy. This chunk is the "renewables gap."

There’s good news and bad news about oil depletion. The good news is that the International Energy Agency (IEA) and our government are both a lot smarter than we thought!

Two senior IEA officials (one current, one former) recently told the Guardian, a prominent newspaper in the U. K., that key oil data is being distorted by the IEA under American pressure, and that the reality is that we are much closer to oil shortages than we think. We’ve known for years that the official IEA figures are silly; that’s not news. What is news is that the IEA itself knew this.